Saudi Arabia said on Sunday it had no
evidence that Osama bin Laden had died, shedding further doubt on a secret
document leaked in France that said Saudi secret services believed he had
died last month.

France and the United States said on Saturday they
could not confirm the report in French regional daily L'Est Republicain
which quoted France's DGSE foreign intelligence

service as saying the Saudi secret services were convinced
the al Qaeda leader had died of typhoid in Pakistan in late August.
Time magazine separately posted an article on its Web site citing an unidentified
Saudi source, who claimed bin Laden was stricken with a water-borne disease
and may already be dead.

The Saudi Embassy in Washington, however, issued a
statement saying: "The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has no evidence to support
recent media reports that Osama bin Laden is dead. Information that has
been reported otherwise is purely speculative and cannot be independently
verified."

French President Jacques Chirac told reporters bin
Laden's death "has not been confirmed in any way whatsoever and so
I have no comment to make" and that he was surprised a confidential
note had been published.

France has launched a probe into how the document was
leaked.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters
in New York, "No comment, no knowledge," when asked about the
French article.

A U.S. intelligence source separately said Washington,
which has made capturing bin Laden a priority in its war on terrorism, had
no evidence the report was any more credible than earlier rumours of his
demise.

"We've heard these things before and have no reason
to think this is any different," said the U.S. intelligence official,
who asked not to be named.

TYPHOID

L'Est Republicain, published in Nancy, printed what
it said was a copy of the report, dated September 21, and said it had been
passed to Chirac and Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin the same day.

"According to a usually reliable source, the Saudi
services are now convinced that Osama bin Laden is dead," it read.

"The information gathered by the Saudis indicates
that the head of al Qaeda fell victim, while he was in Pakistan on August
23, 2006, to a very serious case of typhoid that led to a partial paralysis
of his internal organs."

Time magazine said its source claimed Saudi officials
have received a number of reports in recent weeks that bin Laden had been
struck by a water-borne illness and was likely dead but had no solid proof.

There was scepticism about whether Riyadh was well-placed
to be the first to pick up on such a development.

"If anyone was in the picture, I doubt it would
be Saudi intelligence," a Western diplomat in Riyadh said.

"Even if Saudi Arabia had information, they'd
pass it on to the United States, not France. It doesn't ring true."

A senior Pakistani government official said Islamabad
had received no information from any foreign government that would corroborate
the story.

The Saudi-born bin Laden was based in Afghanistan until
its Taliban government was overthrown by U.S.-backed forces after al Qaeda's
September 11 attacks on the United States.

Since then, U.S. and Pakistani officials have regularly
said they believe bin Laden is hiding somewhere on the rugged border between
Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Bin Laden is rumoured to have been suffering from kidney
ailments and receiving dialysis treatment. His last videotaped message was
released in late 2004 but several low-quality audio tapes have been released
this year.